Lately, I've been hearing a lot from bitcoin haters saying things like "Bitcoin is super polluting" or "Bitcoin wastes too much energy".
These arguments have been around since the beginning of bitcoin, even Satoshi tackled them, and they've been shot down multiple times. I'm just trying to put together some solid info to push back against those claims.
I want to address specific points with some counterarguments backed by data, links, and references. This way, we can be ready to defend Bitcoin if it ever really needs defending.
Claim: The bitcoin network uses as much electricity as XXXBitcoin Energy Consumption Index.
Response: Think about it, TVs, planes, Christmas lights, and plastic all need tons of energy to make and use. So what’s the limit for how much energy is too much for those? Why are we only measuring this for Bitcoin and not for other products? According to the Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index, devices left on standby in the US could power the bitcoin network for over a year and a half (and that number keeps going down). Mining bitcoin is actually a lot greener compared to mining other valuable things like gold.
Source from Reddit.
Plus, other activities produce similar CO2 emissions. A recent study found that watching Netflix for an hour generates 100g of CO2. With 205 million Netflix subscribers, and each one watching an average of two hours a day, that adds up to 149 billion hours last year. If each hour creates 100g of CO2,
Currently there are about 900 bitcoins generated each day by mining worth about $50 million dollars.
Miners must be spending at least half of that on electric so say 25 million a day.
Back of the envelope calculations but I bet I'm pretty close.
Since the world isn't 100% powered by green energy, any cut in mining will be pretty much a cut in hydro-carbons.
I bet you disagree with this though
Indeed, I disagree.
First, I think you hugely overestimate the price miners pay for electricity.
Second, as many articles in my post demonstrated, the energy is not produced BECAUSE of the miners, but rather the other way round: there are miners because there is plenty of energy.
Third, this reasoning can be applied to everything, why only to mining? "Any cut in indoor lightning will be pretty much a cut in hydro-carbons", so why concentrate on mining?
Fourth, fossil fuels generated electricity is only a brief accident in history, soon, very soon, electricity will be entirely based on renewable energy.
My assumption is based on if you can spend $1 and earn $2 then most people would spend more. If you have a more accurate method that says people wouldn't spend that then please share.
Are you smoking pot? People mine to make money.
It does apply to everything, that's why we use leds these days. Bitcoin uses thousands (or millions) more energy per transaction then visa/debit systems.
Well at least you got one point right. But its not there yet, and won't be for 10 years at least.
About the issue with China, miners in China according to 2020 statistics mined approximately 65% of bitcoin into circulation. I have noticed the use of coal to generate energy has been reducing since 2015.
The reduction in 2020 was so significant in a way that China are focusing more on nuclear, wind and solar energy which are clean source of energy.
The focus of the critics are on electricity producing carbon which contributes to global warming, while the electricity source that produces carbon are mostly from coal (thermal). But with the pictures above which is from Wikipedia, shows how coal energy production greatly reduced and substituted with clean sources.
But, about the renewable energy, I see this links usefully:
https://cointelegraph.com/news/report-76-crypto-miners-use-renewables-as-part-of-their-energy-mix
https://moneyweek.com/investments/alternative-finance/bitcoin/602678/bitcoin-energy-consumption
From the link, it is clear that over 70% of bitcoin mined are from renewable energy, but what I am still considering is that of hydroelectric, hydroelectric in the process of producing energy, I have read online how some hydroelectric power plants emit carbodioxide and methane into the environment, methane is a potent greenhouse gas that is 20 times more effective/potent than carbodioxide in contributing to global warming. Although, properly constructed ones have ways these gaeses are trapped and not released into atmosphere but wind, nuclear and solar as been the best clean source of energy, while wind and solar sources are on the rise in China.
I don't think that whataboutism is a way to combat this argument. Thing is that general public will most likely see this POW as a energy wasting giant. And after bitcoin hits 200k or 1M the attention doesn't exactly go away from us.
In fact at some point governments most likely set up a bigger tax for btc and that will launch another bear run. They will use enviromental reasons as an scapegoat and most likely try to tax btc to death, and not just btc, but all the cryptocurrencies, because the public doesn't know the difference or care.
The critics will not see how mining industries benefiting, employing workers also miner manufacturing companies employ workers and provide more employment. They will not check the fact that bitcoin mining generates energy, in a way miners mine bitcoin, profit from the mining and pay their electricity bill so electricity company will benefit in a way they will also employ more workers. In that case, I do not think bitcoin waste energy so far miners profit from it and pay electricity bill. If it is said that bitcoin waste energy? That is 100% wrong. If it is said that bitcoin energy production also produces carbodioxide which can contribute to global warming, that is yes, but know that miners are moving towards the ones that will not produce green house gases, miners are moving towards solar and wind as the source of energy to avoid future complains.
I partially agree with it. Things like Netflix or video games and other entertainment brings happines to billions. Bitcoin users are counted by tens of millions and many of them are only into Bitcoin for investing.
I personally think Bitcoin's ecological damage is simply insignificant, if Bitcoin mining stopped tomorrow, the difference in temperature change in decades would be far below the margin of error. So why ban it? Better focus on fossil fuels, agriculture and other big polluters. Fighting Bitcoin is a waste of time.
With great development and industrialization also comes with great environmental disaster but not to bitcoin. As what the OP had shows that there are many environmental disaster that industrialization and development has brought.
I agree to OP that when it comes to production relatively like plastics produce too much waste that most organization had been too concern. The question is that are they doing something that could reduce the use of these plastics? The answer is YES they had done something but the result is not visible and still plastics produce a lot of waste and after being use is becoming troublesome. Actually one of the worst environmental disaster that has been cause.
This is why those environmental friendly called people could be sometimes be more like hypocrite people. They tend to scrutinize every development like bitcoin and then later on began to silence with some sort of reason and that is corruption. They like to attack to get attention and then they will ask for money to for them to make their silence. I know most critics has done strategy like this in which they called AC/DC. "Attack Collect, Defend Collect" and these groups usually use publicity stunts to get more attention to get paid. The more attention they get the high amount of money they will ask for their silence.
I do believe that this problem with energy sources is problem of both sides, I mean miners can choose to invest in renewable energy like solar or wind but they chose to go the fossil fuel route, but if the energy sector doesn't change how they are getting their energy source then the cycle will continue. The only environmental disaster here is that we are still using fossil fuels and other polluting energy sources when the technology to make an efficient and environmentally friendly energy source is available already.
Great OP fillippone! This should be pinned somewhere for everyone to visit constantly.
Bitcoins energy consumption has been used as a stick to beat it with for years by those
opposed to it but this certainly highlights the facts. Unfortunately the vast majority
of people will continue to believe the bankers and politicians when they play that
card again but we have the facts.
We can also compare the cost of minting coins and printing notes for the FIAT system,
the process used for all currencies around the world.
I would love to see the statistics and numbers for this.
The cost considerations of producing coinage:
1. Heavy machinery production
2. Transportation to mining site
3.Fuel and energy to extract raw material from the earth
4. Raw material transported to a refinery and the cost of refining itself
5. Transportation of refined metal to minting locations and 6. Minting process
7. Transportation to central banks
8. Distribution from central banks to regional banks
9. Distribution from regional banks to retailers
10. Management of coins
11. Storage and security
The cost considerations of producing paper notes
1. Transporting heavy machinery to forests
2. Felling trees
3. Transportation to paper mills
4. Transportation of fibre to the mills
5. Producing raw material for notes
6. Printing of notes
7. Management of waste chemicals
8. Transportation of notes to central banks
9. Distribution of notes to regional banks
10. Distribution of notes to retailers
11. Management of used notes
12. Storage and security
And after all that, what is the cost to the environment?
I've seen few people says there's no point of having ~100K Bitcoin full nodes when each node do same thing. While those people don't mention environmental impact, it's possible someone will use such argument on topic "Bitcoin is an environmental disaster". Anyway, here's few defense
1. Bitcoin full node isn't resource demanding, even Raspberry Pi can run full node.
2. Full node can act as server to SPV wallet which give necessary data (block header, transaction, address balance, etc.)
3. Improve user's privacy
Both atheist and religious people usually think they know they're right.
Very well thought out and I didn't have much to counter as well.
You're comparing Bitcoin to its substitutes instead of the various other human activities which could produce significant carbon footprint. Heck, I can think of tons of activities that directly contribute to an increased carbon footprint; transportation, chemical industries, etc. Does that mean that we can just stop producing metals, refining fossil fuels, completely eliminate them from our lives? Probably not.
In comparison, when you're talking about Bitcoin, the adoption currently is far lower than most of it's substitutes. At 7tps, there are tons of other payment methods that easily outpaces this by a factor of thousands without a strain on their network. Can people stop using Bitcoin? Probably, there are other payment methods because really, do the majority of the people absolutely care about decentralization, transparency? I can see an argument for this if your transaction volume rivals them but if the benefits are still fairly limited, then probably not.
What about the e-waste that is constantly generated from Bitcoin mining? The competition makes it such that old ASICs are always phased out once the profit margin diminishes and as ASICs can never be reprogrammed into something else, they usually end up being useless afterwards. Of course, they're always turned on 24/7 with the chips pushed to their limits and the failure rates can be higher than most electronics. Surely both the production and disposal of these ASICs are fairly detrimental to the environment? You can't recycle silicon, or that's what I know.
I'm a strong proponent that Bitcoin's electrical usage, while fairly significant doesn't pose as a serious problem. I can't see how e-waste wouldn't be an issue, as we're talking about environmental impact after all.
I mostly agree with what you have posted here @coinycoiny. Don't forget that people will close their mind and grasp at any straw to protect what they perceive as their economic interests...often times this is done subconsciously. Lot's of what is being said reminds me of Big Tabaco trying to paint smoking as healthy or the Oil & Gas industry trying to confuse the climate change debate. What most BTC holders don't understand is that they can sell BTC and switch to a greener crypto that has more potential upside and less environmental baggage.
@fillippone All your defenses to accusation 1 basically say that other human activities also use electricity that emit greenhouse gases, so why pick on bitcoin. To someone who believes that GHG emission is leading us towards a climate disaster (i.e. https://www.google.com/books/edition/How_to_Avoid_a_Climate_Disaster/pHK0DwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&printsec=frontcover), thats like saying Yes, your honor, I ______ (stole money, cheated on my taxes, beat my wife, etc.) but lots of my neighbors do the same thing. Its my believe that all industries need to get to net zero as soon as possible. Some are trying harder than others. Peoples fascination with bitcoin put it in the news and its INCREASING CARBON FOOTPRINT put it in the crosshairs.
In 1.2 you say According to data from the Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index devices kept on standby, in the United States alone, could power the bitcoin network for more than a year and a half. (a figure that has been constantly decreasing) Are you saying that the number of years is going down? If so, that means that the amount of electrical consumption by standby devices is going down and/or the amount of power used by the bitcoin network is going up.
1.4 What gives you and other humans more enjoyment, watching bitcoin get mined or watching Netflix?
Your defenses to the Accusation that Miners in China ravage the environment to produce Bitcoin. A large part of electricity production in China is made with fossil sources, especially coal, and the ecological footprint of Bitcoin is unsustainable are more nuanced.
1. Environmentalists would say that it is a good thing and NOT A WASTE for coal to stay in the ground where it has sequestered carbon for many years.
2. Yes, SOME bitcoin mining uses green sources that would otherwise be wasted.
3. According to your link, one study estimated 72% of mining energy came from non-renewable sources (like coal and nuclear), while another, that you cited, had the figure at 61%. In either case, the majority is coming from unpopular sources that either emit GHG or produce hazardous waste that has to be stored for multiple generations.
4. Yes, bitcoin does help the profits of the energy industry.
5. Yes, there are ways for the energy industry to get more efficient. Some blockchain applications may help with this. See also 1.4 as many would say there are more beneficial ways to use computing power in the positive ways you suggest that the bitcoin network may be doing currently or in the future.
Accusation- The Bitcoin network is maximally inefficient. PoW leads to the consumption of a huge amount of energy for each Bitcoin transaction if for example, we compare it with VISA.
1.Arent there more energy efficient ways to secure a network?
2. Yes, miners are trying to use the most efficient computing power and lowest cost of energy, regardless of source. When minors upgrade from one computer source to another (or replace an ASIC) lots of e-waste is created.
3. Yes, lots of industries have negative externalities that should be better factored in. Emissions/Pollution fees that charges all polluters which is then returned equally to all individuals would help incentivize less pollution and be a net benefit to those that cause less than their fair share. As you mention with bitcoin, it is not just the transactions that lead to CO2 emissions, but also securing the network for anyone that holds BTC. This is why I suggested that governments may tax holders in cases where the miners are outside their jurisdiction (the rational being that those importing a polluting product should not get a free pass just because they dont purchase locally). https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5323833.0
4. Yes, per the Bitcoin whitepaper, the system is designed to use lots of energy.
5. Again, two wrongs dont make a right. Gold isnt green either and should also be subject to pollution/carbon/environmental fees. My guess is that gold hasnt exponentially increased its GHG emissions in the last 5 years like bitcoin, but they should still look to be going to net zero and pay for any negative externalities. There are those that object to gold (I.e. Now, https://www.earthworks.org/campaigns/no-dirty-gold/impacts/ and before bitcoin was in the crosshairs https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/environmental-disaster-gold-industry-180949762/) and the US prohibited the hording of gold in 1933 (albeit for economic and not environmental reasons). As a side note, if you stopped gold mining, the price might go up and additional ecological issues would be virtually eliminated (but long term effects of past mining would still present a problem)...with BTC, as you point out, the network relies on miners indefinitely for security purposes.
Yes, its unfair to single out bitcoin rather than have broad rules/fees/taxes that apply equally to everyone, but with more people concerned about climate change, no broad self-regulation from the bitcoin community on electrical sources, and the fact that electrical use is DESIGNED TO GO UP as the price goes up (regardless of how much utility it is providing), bitcoin will stay in the environmental crosshairs until something changes. Having control over money is power, and governments could certainly use bitcoin's environmental shortcomings as an excuse to regulate and take back that power if they feel BTC is a threat. Smarter for the crypto community to proactively find a greener horse to back (or for the bitcoin industry to clean up its act ASAP)
I think it's only black propaganda tactics from those people that were critical to Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, It's too obvious and very noticeable that they are trying to single out the crypto Industry to blame in the name of preserving the environment and ignoring other Co2 contributor industries how ironic isn't it. But thanks to a useful thread like this those accusations will be debunked easily.
A list of great statement to defend the Bitcoin network by the @OP in response to the critics who are always trying to defame the image of Bitcoin which is not under their control.There have always these arguments from the start and have fueled up with increase in prices and demand but you have given possible justification for each statement.
The amount of electricity which Bitcoin consumes is around 150Tw/H which is huge and can light up the entire country of Denmark and some others but if we make comparisons with other sources like banking sector then it is much lower like Banks are also using high cost of electricity like 200-250 Tw/h if we take combined cost of banks around America.Its not debatable why? Because they are centeral authorities that's why.
Miners are now trying to find new renewable resources to mine bitcoin as China is major source of Bitcoin mining with 65% of control but miners are continuously finding optimal ways to reduce the cost because they are the ones who are bearing cost of electricity and paying taxes to the government which is reducing their profits.China is undoubtedly exploiting its natural resources on building new projects daily and they don't blame themselves because who can argue with CCP its their rule.
To keep the network secure POW is the most secure algorithm used in Bitcoin network and it will consume high amount of electricity.Miners need some rewards for their work to keep network secure, validate transactions for which they need to mine Bitcoin and they are now using ASIC for mining which is more upgraded,fast and best for mining because they need to solve cryptographic puzzle whose difficulty is in trillions and every 10 minutes a block is mined.But you can't argue on this.Why are employees of bank paid so much of fixed salary just to keep the funds of people safely right? Government and private sector are spending so much money on employees just to provide services to the people and same is the case with Bitcoin mining.Miners need rewards in return of their work.
So these arguments will keep on going with rise in Bitcoin price and demand and slowly they all will be appreciating the Bitcoin network.
Thanks for compiling this list of arguments and sources. I agree that there are other things to focus on when it comes to ecological problems. Renewable sources of energy, cutting down the meat industry, promoting the usage of public transportation instead of cars could all make some difference. As for reducing the energy consumption, I believe there's another argument to be made here in Bitcoin's defense. Namely, as our civilization progresses, we're bound to use more and more energy in various forms (this reminds me of the Kardashev scale a little). Trying to cut down on energy consumption means using laptops, artificial lights, washing machines and many other things less, and turning instead to a more natural (in a sense of being close to nature) way of life. This clearly isn't happening, and humanity doesn't seem to be eager to let go of innovations that make our lives easier (and I don't think it should let go). So what's important is to focus on sustainability. Instead of trying to reduce energy consumption, we should focus on getting this energy from more eco-friendly sources and cutting down on other things that harm our planet. So what's bad is not that Bitcoin mining needs a lot of energy, but that the sources of this energy aren't always great.
If we were to assume that Bitcoin never existed at all, would the world be a better place to live in the sense that all this tremendous energy it currently uses would be redirected to some other things? All the energy used by crypto miners would be produced anyway, maybe some part would be used, but surely some of that energy would be wasted - therefore, I do not see a problem at all that energy is used for something like Bitcoin, but of course I understand that there are those who will declare even 0.2% of the world's total energy consumption a natural disaster.
That argument has been defeated hundreds of times, and all those who think Bitcoin is a problem of environmental pollution - stop using your cars, don't turn on the heating over the winter and completely eliminate plastic from your life. Of course, we have all been doing this for decades and no one wants to give up the comfort of life, and all our actions are a thousand times more dangerous than the fact that there is something called Bitcoin that currently consumes as much as 0.2% of total world electricity.